| Abstract: | During the postwar period the big European trading companies withdrew from many larger and smaller towns up-country in Sierra Leone, the country wich the author had taken as his case study. Some of the stations (trading posts) closed had become marginal because of falls in merchandise sales or produce purchases but not all of them. So the question why the directors ordered a complete withdrawal from up-country needs further research. In many places the firm's withdrawal took place in two stages. At the first closure the firm ceased to trade directly but installed an agent. Later there was a final closure. The oil companies left the distribution of their products to the trading firms for most of the colonial period. But while the latter retreated, the oil companies advanced and had to stand more and more on their own, in the 1970s the agency agreements were terminated. Bibliogr., notes. |
AfricaBib 
Book chapter
Leiden University catalogue
WorldCat